Five Things You Should Know This Week

1. We are closing in on the end of our first twenty days of school. This probably means nothing to little to you, but for the inner workings of our classroom, that means we're getting all of the routines established and the expectations for our literacy program laid out. Late next week, we will begin with our reading groups and my reading conferences. It's about time we got into the nitty-gritty of our school year anyway. As an aside, I was extremely pleased with the results of our first Theme Test. You will see the results tomorrow, but man am I ever happy with these kiddos.
   
2. September 19 is our S.P.I.C.E. field trip! This is the program where we will take the kids to the location in Indianapolis for the team-building activities that are going to be much-needed this school year. Miss Hume and I are working on the T-shirt design and can't wait for this trip. I will toss a link on here for the location and the website as soon as I am able to retrieve it. EDIT: Here it is! Looks pretty sweet.
   
3. This week we are starting Caesar's English. This will be our vocabulary thing instead of Spelling tests on shortened weeks. This focuses usually on Greek and Latin prefixes, suffixes, and stems in commonly used words. We teachers felt very gratified in the use of this program last spring when we found items on the ISTEP test that our students knew only because of Caesar's English. Look for a list to come home tomorrow in lieu of a spelling list.
4. We will have a Math Quiz on Friday. We are starting a new chapter this week, and I want to get some information on how the kids are taking it in on Friday. This one isn't a really hard one (estimation and arithmetic), but still, you will find that I get a lot more good out of a few quizzes per chapter; that way, the kids are ready for the big test at the end. Speaking of which, I was also pretty happy with the results of the Math test on Friday. Either you have really bright kids or I'm a really awesome teacher. Probably both.
   
5. The first Whoops Sheets will go home tomorrow (Tuesday). This is a math class thing. This gives the students a chance to correct the mistakes they make on a Math test, explain what happened, and show that they know how to do it correctly. If they do this, I will give them half credit back for each point that they missed.
   

Have a great week, everyone! Hope you all had an awesome three day weekend. Now, back at it!